


Ain't no guard (in my house)

by AquaMarinara



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: (bad ones), B&V team up to bring Hiram Lodge down, F/M, They meet undercover PI Jughead Jones along the way, featuring lots of badass!Betty and Veronica's love for disguises, investigating!bughead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-27 17:16:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17166023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AquaMarinara/pseuds/AquaMarinara
Summary: It doesn't take much more than one sly mention of 'undercover recon' to get Betty involved in taking down her best friend's dad, but it does take a hell of a lot more to get them into his private office.





	Ain't no guard (in my house)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [knittersrevolt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/knittersrevolt/gifts).



> For @cooperandjonesinc over on tumblr! I'm so sorry for getting this out so late. I hope that you had a lovely Christmas and that you enjoy this little story featuring some butt-kicking females and Bughead meeting while on a recon mission.
> 
> (Thank you so very much to @justcourbeau for beta'ing and helping me out at the very last minute!)
> 
> Much love <3

 

_ “I ain’t blind _

_ Just a matter of time _

_ Before you steal it _

_ It’s alright _

_ Ain’t no guard in my house” _

 

\- “Gold on the Ceiling”, The Black Keys

 

~~~

 

**Friday, November 30th.**

**7:34 p.m.**

 

Betty walks in to the smell of Chinese food—specifically chicken and broccoli—and packets of duck sauce strewn over the kitchen counter. Veronica’s gone all out, it seems, for their Friday night.

 

“V?” she calls out into the apartment as she sets her purse down on the entrance table. “What’s the occasion?”

 

“Nothing, B!” Her tornado of a best friend and roommate sweeps into the living room from her bedroom, hand removing her makeup with a wipe while she pads across the hardwood floors and over to the bags and bags of takeout.

 

Betty tugs her ponytail just a tiny bit looser in an effort to subdue the migraine that’s been growing for the past few hours, and she sighs as she pulls off her snow boots and shakes the snowflakes out of the scarf around her neck.

 

“It’s not nothing, V. I’ve lived with you long enough to know a bribe when I see one.”

 

Veronica pulls a container of wonton soup out of the bag, still cloudy with condensation from the heat, and  Betty levels her with a glare, one that Veronica can feel definitely burning through the back of her dress. 

 

She turns slowly, sheepishly, towards her friend, and smiles through her teeth. “How would you feel about helping me out next week?” She coughs suddenly, mutters out a “with putting Daddy away”, and continues coughing up her lungs when she turns back to dishing the soup out into bowls. Her shoulders tense as Betty waits a few seconds to respond, tongue heavy in her mouth.

 

“You mean, for good?”

 

“Yeah, um, I just have a feeling about it, you know? I told him I’d only work for Lodge Enterprises if he promised to be better, to help those who really need a home to finally get one by building affordable housing in the Southside, but I think—”

 

Betty walks over to her friend, smooths out the tensed muscles in her back, and settles down on one of the bar stools in front of the counter as she reaches to open up the aluminum foil dish of pan-fried noodles. “You think he’s gone back to the dark side,” she supplies in understanding.

 

“Yes! Yes, exactly. I don’t know for sure, but Andre’s been really shifty lately, and I saw Papa Poutine leaving his office when I stayed late the other night.  _ Papa Poutine _ , Betty,” she emphasizes. “He’s the king of shady mafia deals, and my dad’s talking to him again? Something’s up. Especially since he hasn’t brought on any new security recently—he’s trying to lower suspicion by acting like he’s got nothing to hide. Which means that he’s definitely…”

 

“Hiding something,” they both say in unison. Betty pulls Veronica’s stool out from under the counter, forces her to sit and relax while she herself stands to grab some chopsticks and spoons out of their cutlery drawer, and paces around the kitchen for a bit before coming back to eat.

 

“So you want to catch him in the act? Send me out to follow Andre for a bit and see what I can find?”

 

“No, no,” Veronica’s head shakes quickly. “They’d catch on quick. We’ve just got to find exactly what it is he’s keeping from me. Probably some records of all his dealings—I’m not sure.”

 

Betty’s eyes widen as she picks at her stir fry, lights flickering above them as the wind howls with the snow outside. “Like, an undercover recon mission?”

 

“If I remember correctly, they always  _ were _ your thing in high school, Nancy Drew,” Veronica smirks, eyebrows raising, and Betty chuckles at that.

 

“I can’t believe I was the one always pulling stunts like that out of the two of us. You’d think the girl capable of going ‘full dark no stars’ would be way more excited to break in and out of teachers’ cars and snoop around seedy motels than the one in pastels.”

 

“Hey, I was an overly dramatic teen queen back then, alright?” Veronica defends, arms drawn across her chest as she pouts at her friend, a smile threatening to tug the corners of her lips back upwards. “I don’t pull shit like that anymore.”

 

“Really?” Betty laughs, gesturing to the meal for ten that’s spread out over their granite counter. “So you didn’t just order enough food for the entire apartment building just to bribe  _ Nancy Fricking Drew _ to pull a fast one on your father?”

 

“Well, did it work?” Veronica huffs while reaching for the fortune cookies in one of the plastic bags.

 

“Get me the time schedules of every guard in that corporate building, their daily routes, and the wifi password, and I’m in,” Betty affirms, and braces herself for the impending squeal-and-tackle of gratitude from her best friend.

 

As always, it still manages to knock the breath out of her lungs.

 

~~~

 

**Friday, December 7th.**

**9:22 a.m.**

 

Betty watches Veronica push through the revolving doors of Lodge Enterprises from her seat on the park bench across the street.

 

She lowers the newspaper in her hands after a few timed seconds, draws her sunglasses down to shield her shining green eyes from the sun reflecting off the snow, and tugs the brunette wig tighter over her head. It had been Veronica’s idea to cover up her flashy blonde hair with the dull chestnut brown locks, and Betty would be more uncomfortable if she wasn’t so focused on getting through with this mission.

 

The newspaper lays, left behind, on the wooden bench as she crosses the street, shifting the purse over her shoulder and slipping into an easy, laid-back stride. She keeps her glasses on as she steps through the building, looking straight ahead, while Veronica chats up the security guard at the front desk.

 

“How are your kids this year, Frank? You know, I’m sure Mr. Lodge wouldn’t mind us organizing another family holiday party this year—any ideas for what we could change this time around?”

 

Betty pulls her wallet out of her purse on her way to the turnstiles, Veronica’s ID wedged inside so as to hide it from the cameras pointed at her, and slips past the entrance without stopping. She makes her way to the elevators, passes a guard standing by the entrance to the first floor conference hall by shoving her face into her phone, and waits patiently for the elevators to direct her to the one closest to Ground Zero before slipping inside as soon as the doors open. 

 

She presses the button for the sixth floor, head bent down and away from the camera in the elevator, and smirks at the shrill voice that passes through the elevator doors before they shut once again: “Oh Frank! I must have left my ID in my office yesterday. You wouldn’t mind buzzing me in, would you?”

 

~~~

 

**Friday, December 7th.**

**10:00 a.m.**

 

Betty’s phone buzzes in the waistband of her skirt, an alarm signaling the time, and Betty pulls a nail file out of her purse as the elevator comes to a stop. 

 

The doors open to the employee common room, empty at this time of the morning but for a few chatty I.T. technicians, a security guard monitoring the entrance to the hall a few meters to the right, and one man manning the coffee machine by the sink. He pulls away from the machine, as expected, as soon as her heel hits the floor, and Betty walks toward him with the nail file in hand, eyes focused on manicuring her fingers as she goes.

 

He too wanders to the elevators distractedly while bouncing the cup of coffee from hand to hand, obviously still much too hot for him to be holding it.

 

Her toe gets stuck in the crack between the tiles lining the floor, and the shoe slips off as Betty falls forward, sharpened file in hand, right into the armed security guard. Her shoulder slams into his, hard, sending the coffee cup to the floor while her other arm comes up to catch herself on him.

 

The nail file slips quickly through the wire to his walkie-talkie, severing the wire discreetly, and Betty drops the nail file into the pool of coffee on the tiled floor as she nearly brings both of them down with it. The wig never slips out of place, and Betty breathes a sigh of relief as she catches herself and pulls the both of them back from their teetering position. 

 

He breathes out a sigh of relief as well, but it’s for entirely different reasons. 

 

“I’m so sorry, sir,” she begins to stutter, reaching down to pull her low-heeled shoe back on and to pick her nail file back up. She waves it in his face while gesturing wildly, explaining in as fast a ramble as she can that she “hadn’t meant to bother him”, “had been so distracted by such a silly thing as a manicure”, and “would make it up to him—immediately”.

 

Her feet shuffle towards the counter with the coffee machine, and Betty slips her nail file back into her purse only to exchange it for a vial of concentrated prune juice. It’s only a fluid ounce, but it’ll do the trick. 

 

She turns quickly to watch him mop up the coffee spill with a few paper towels, grumbling as he goes, and adds the prune juice into the coffee she’s just poured for him. She settles her sunglasses on her nose once more before turning around, coffee cup in hand, and drops it onto the table in front of him.

 

He barely has the time to look at her before she’s stepping into the open elevator, an apology leaving her lips lightly as her fingers reach out to hit the button for the eighth floor: “Again, I’m so sorry, sir. You have a relaxed day, alright?”

 

Her lips morph slightly, and one last word escapes her as the doors come to a close. “Sucker.”

 

~~~

 

**Friday, December 7th.**

**2:49 p.m.**

 

Veronica’s in her office when Betty slips inside this time, her dark-rimmed reading glasses settled on the perch of her nose as she scours over blueprints of the building.

 

Betty makes a beeline for the back corner, where she reaches for a pair of loafers to exchange for her heels, an oversized men’s suit to switch with her pencil skirt and blouse, and a shorter wig than the one she currently dons to hide all her hair under—all courtesy of Veronica Lodge’s penchant for disguises.

 

“Do you really think cracking the lock’s the best way to go, B?” she asks without looking up from the plans spread out on her desk. “We could probably get in easier through the fire escape on the North side.”

 

“And risk being seen by the men on the ground? Hell no,” Betty supplies as she fumbles with knotting the light blue tie around her neck. She bites her lip and focuses on the slip of fabric in her hands as she goes.  _ Wide over narrow, pull through, wrong under right— _

 

“Is Kevin’s combo-breaker-thing really going to work?” This time, Veronica gazes up, eyebrow arched as she examines her partner-in-crime’s new outfit.

 

_ Wide over narrow, pull through, into the loop.  _ “It should. I mean, it did when we tested it out on the small safe at his place, but he was there with me to fix the Stepper Motor in case it overheated.”  _ There, done. _

 

“He’s not here now, B.”

 

“Thank you for stating the obvious,” Betty snarks, rolling her eyes. “It’s not going to fail, alright? We’re getting through that master lock one way or another.” She casually pulls her arms through each sleeve of the suit jacket, careful not to let the collared shirt underneath wrinkle as she does. “Did you get the cameras set up?”

 

“Yes, ma’am.” Veronica nods, her face now lit up with excitement as she pulls up two windows of grainy camera footage on her laptop. “I left one on that little corner table across the hall and the other on the side of the water cooler, just like you said.”

 

The first wireless camera—hidden inside the fake bottom of a vase of flowers left to decorate the small table oh-so-conveniently placed right in front of the entrance to the men’s bathroom—ensures that, after a half hour of watching over the video footage, everyone who might have entered the bathroom while Betty had been changing has now exited.

 

Veronica nods the okay, and Betty grabs tape, two folded sheets of paper reading “Out of Service: Sorry for the Inconvenience”, two stacks of pennies, and a flash drive off of Veronica’s desk, shoving each individual item into a pocket inside of the oversized jacket she has on.

 

“Go get ‘em, little man,” Veronica snickers from her desk chair, and Betty makes sure to flip her the bird on her way out of the office and to the stairs. The elevator would probably save her from the scrutiny of many more available camera angles, but Betty can’t afford to get caught in conversation right now. Sure, she may look the part, but her voice hasn’t exactly been trained to lower to a believable level quite yet—and, god forbid, if she had to engage in small talk with yet another one of Hiram’s insufferable meathead mafia men—

 

She’d rather take the stairs, is all.

 

“Clear,” comes Veronica’s voice in her bluetooth earpiece, one she’s seen many a businessperson blabber into incessantly while in the early-bird line at Starbucks every day for the past few years.

 

Her stride slows as she approaches the entrance, and Veronica’s voice filters in again once she crosses in front of the camera’s path. “Damn, girl. You’re a hotter dude than half the male population of our high school class.”

 

“Oh hush, V,” she hisses as she slips inside the men’s bathroom, kicking the doorstop to the main door away with the shuffle of her foot. It swings shut as she moves for the sinks, and once the door fully closes behind her, Betty turns quickly to get to work. 

 

She locks one stall from the inside, then stands on the toilet seat to climb over the plastic barrier to the next one, locking it from the inside as well, and then climbs once more to exit the last stall and step outside. Her teeth rip four pieces of tape off the roll to stick the two “Out of Order” signs onto the locked stalls, and then Betty steps carefully out of the men’s bathroom, her heavy stride carrying her to the entrance to the stairwell.

 

She checks off yet another task on her mental list. This morning it had been  _ make him have to use the bathroom, badly,  _ and now it’s  _ block said bathroom off. _ That should give her and Veronica a few extra minutes.

 

“You’ve got incoming, B,” she hears through the earpiece and quickly shuts the door to the stairs behind herself as the ding of the opening elevator doors resounds through the second floor hallway. “Not our guy, though. Definitely one of the lawyers who couldn’t be bothered to use the perfectly-fine bathroom on his own floor,” Veronica observes critically, and Betty almost chuckles at the sharp bite to her best friend’s voice as she starts up the stairs, pulling the stacks of pennies out of her pockets as she goes.

 

“Alright, well, he may not be our guy, but keep an eye on him too, and not just on the hot lawyer who can’t use his own bathroom. Yeah, that’s right, I’m onto you. Even when I can’t see you. Nancy Drew strikes yet ag—”

 

“He’s on the move!” Veronica interrupts, screeching loudly enough into Betty’s ear that she has to pull the bluetooth device out with a jerk.

 

“Jesus, V. Could you be any louder?” she quips, pausing on the last step. “Which one’s on the move?”

 

“Security, B, so I’ve gotta—”

 

Her voice cuts out, but Betty fills in for her. “Go go go,” she chants as she runs back down the stairs to lock the door to the staircase on the second floor. Once it’s locked, she leans all her weight into pushing the door as far into the jamb as possible and slips both stacks of duck-taped pennies into the seam between the door and the wall—one above the lock and the other below it. That should hold it enough to force him to use the overly busy elevators instead.

 

Betty turns, runs up the stairs two at a time, and makes it to the third floor before shuffling past a pair of arguing architects to get to the security camera room. 

 

They’ve got very little time, they know, in between when the camera security guard and his replacement will switch for him to go the bathroom, and Betty’s got to get inside to set the security cameras on a loop while Veronica distracts the replacement man.

 

Betty slows down to glide past Veronica, who’s currently tapping her heeled foot impatiently while arguing with a man in a bulletproof vest over whether or not it was appropriate to start listening to Christmas music in November—a heated debate that leaves Betty with a small smile on her face. Leave it to her best friend to engage in, and undoubtedly win, a discussion over such an inconsequential topic just to keep an idiotic guard occupied.

 

The door to the security room shuts softly, and Betty immediately turns to insert the flash drive Veronica had given her into the system. The camera footage shuts off as soon as the drive slides into the USB port, and then it shakes back to showing the same rooms as before, except that now the video footage displayed is from days ago. Betty lets the hours-long footage upload from the flash drive before ejecting it and slipping outside, whispering a “done” into her earpiece. 

 

“You know what, Jeff,” she hears Veronica’s voice raise, “we’re all entitled to our incorrect opinions. If you want to ruin Christmas with your grinch-like attitude, fine, but just know that I’ll be enjoying the musical genius of Jingle Bells starting the day after Thanksgiving for the rest of my life, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” She huffs, turns to take the elevator back to her office, and meets Betty inside, where the two girls can’t stop themselves from cracking up as soon as they begin moving upwards.

 

~~~

 

**Friday, December 7th.**

**6:01 p.m.**

 

Most of the Lodge Enterprises employees have left for the bar by the time the two girls have changed into their final outfits of the day.

 

Betty’s no longer in a wig, but rather has her hair parted down the middle into two buns on the top of her head, while Veronica has her own hair pinned back by two Leatherdos clips and a few bobby pins. They’re both in all-black, with Betty in a tight sweater, skinny jeans, and converse (a small backpack with Kevin’s lock breaker inside on her shoulders), while Veronica’s in a long-sleeved shirt with a triangular cut-out, mesh-paneled leggings, and black flats.

 

They take the singular elevator up to the ninth and final floor and wait for the doors to open slowly before stepping out as quietly as possible onto the marble floors. Based on Veronica’s reports, they know the night guard shouldn’t be passing by this half of the building for another ten or so minutes at least, but they’re still careful to check for wanderers at every corner.

 

Veronica leads them down the hallway, back against the white-washed wall, to her father’s office, and they stop in front of the chestnut double-doors, both of them eyeing the heavy-duty safe lock stopping them from entering.

 

“You got this, B,” Veronica whispers encouragingly, stepping back and letting her friend take over as she routinely checks the surrounding halls for any company.

 

Betty kneels on the hard floor, eye-level with the lock, and pulls the Arduino-powered code breaker out of her bag, lining the spinner of the motor up with the turning dial. Kevin’s promised her that it’ll crack the code in less than thirty seconds, time being of the essence in their operation, but the dial keeps spinning and spinning, to no avail, and she’s starting to lose her patience.

 

“So much for  _ ‘it’s not going to fail’ _ ,” Veronica mocks when a spark jumps from the wires connecting the Arduino chip to the motor. Betty would love to argue, to grit her teeth and break that lock with her own bare hands, but it won’t seem to budge, and Betty’s not about to spend hours guessing the combination when a guard would be walking by any minute.

 

She pulls the device off the lock and shoves it back into her backpack, throwing it over her shoulders. “Alright, well we can’t go through it,” she observes.

 

“We can’t go under it,” Veronica adds helpfully.

 

“And we can’t get around it.”

 

They both tilt their heads up in unison, eyes catching on the air vent above them. “Guess we’ve got to go above it.”

 

“You’re lighter, V,” Betty tells her, and the discussion ends there. With no chairs or stools or ledges in sight, they’ve only got themselves to climb off of to get up there, and Betty reasons that lifting Veronica up so that she can unlock the door from the inside for them seems to be the best option.

 

She kneels to the floor again, allowing Veronica to hop on her back, and then uses the door’s knobs as support to pull herself up. They tip slightly, Betty nearly losing her balance with the added weight above her, but manage to sway back against the wall, and Veronica pulls a Leatherdos clip out of her hair to unscrew the grate covering the air duct.

 

Her breath comes out in quick pants as her knees buckle, but Betty pushes through it, closing her eyes and focusing on steadying her heartbeat. Veronica’s got the grate off the wall and in her hands, and Betty lifts one of her own to grab it from her so that the petite brunette can climb inside unencumbered. 

 

Veronica’s struggling to pull herself up and inside past her shoulders when Betty hears footsteps, but her limited perspective and the legs wrapped around her neck prohibit her from examining exactly where the guard’s coming from. “V,” she urges, “you’ve got to hurry.”

 

Veronica seems to understand, pulling herself up and clawing at the steel lining of the duct with increased fervor, but her footing on Betty’s shoulder slips, and the air leaves Betty’s lungs as she anticipates her best friend’s fall. 

 

“Hey!” comes a shout from behind her as someone runs over, just in time to catch Veronica as she flails and tips backwards from her perch on Betty’s shoulders. He’s got Veronica by her midsection, holding her up above his head, and she shrieks at his touch, squirming so much that he nearly drops her to the floor. “Quit it, would you?” he grits out through his teeth, and Betty turns around to match the voice to a face.

 

He’s handsome, she notices, and lean in the way most guards aren’t. She’d place him as more of an intelligence agent than a bulked-up security guard, but his uniform says otherwise, and her shoulders tense as she reaches for her backpack, sure that Kevin’s code breaker would prove an effective weapon if necessary for self-defense.

 

“Who are you?” he questions, the lines of his face hardening as he sets Veronica on her feet and examines the two girls in front of him. He doesn’t seem overly upset at their presence in front of Hiram’s office, especially at such an hour, and the fact that he doesn’t recognize Veronica—even in her outfit and mussed-up hairdo—tells Betty he hasn’t been working here long at all.

 

“Who are you?” she shoots right back, fairly certain the guy’s a fraud.

 

He rolls his eyes, points to the security badge on his chest, and crosses his arms. “I asked you first.”

 

“Fine,” she huffs, hoping that if she gives in then he will too. “Betty Cooper,” she waves a hand to indicate herself, “and the one you just caught falling out of the ceiling is Veronica Lodge.”

 

His eyes—blue, so very blue—widen at the name and his lips part, but he doesn’t move.

 

“We’re trying to get into this office. Hiram Lodge’s—you know, your boss?” she widens her eyes pointedly. “He’s been far too shady this holiday season, and Santa sent us to check in on him,” she explains, biting back a smile at how much she’s teasing him. 

 

Veronica doesn’t seem to understand the game, blatantly shooting daggers in Betty’s direction for giving them up. Her eyebrows raise into her hairline when, to her surprise, the guard steps forward with a hand outstretched.

 

“Jughead Jones, PI,” he greets, and Betty reaches out to shake his hand, nodding along despite being completely taken aback at the name. (She’s not about to ask, though. She doesn’t need anyone else telling her just how  _ perfectly old fashioned _ her own name is.) “Hiram’s been on my radar for awhile now as well. I hope you don’t mind if I join in the investigation.” He smirks, waving a hand at their failed attempt at breaking and entering.

 

“Excuse me, we were getting along just fine until you got here,” Betty protests, but she has to admit that having an extra set of hands—one that can easily pass as security in the building they’re trying to infiltrate—wouldn’t exactly hurt. “But, by any chance, do you happen to have security clearance to enter the office without having to pick any locks or climb through a few vents?”

 

She might as well play the cards she’s been dealt.

 

“Unfortunately, no, or else I would’ve swiped all the incriminating evidence when I first got this job a few weeks ago. Seems like our best bet is the vents, and this time you’ve got someone else to give you a hand up there.”

 

This time, Veronica pipes up, still glaring at the two of them as if they’re in on a joke she’s tried to understand one too many times. “I refuse to be manhandled yet again,” she exclaims, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

 

“Well, I’m not doing it,” Jughead fires back, hands up as if proclaiming his innocence.

 

They both turn to look at her at once, and Betty shuts her eyes as she inhales deeply.  _ Goddammit, Nancy Drew. Looks like you’re up. _

 

She surrenders immediately, stepping over to the air duct and waiting for Veronica and Jughead to come around either side of her, and Betty steadies herself as they crouch down to lift her up.

 

“On the count of three,” Veronica announces, one hand on Betty’s calf, the other on her waist to keep her center of gravity from tipping too far forwards or back. She’s about to start lifting, when Jughead’s voice cuts through on the other side. Betty can feel his breath as it blows against her thigh.

 

“Hold on. Do we go on three, or after?”

 

  
“On three, Jones,” Veronica retorts, exasperated at their situation, and Betty braces herself.

 

They manage to get her up into the vents, hands shifting as they push her further in by her feet, and she tries to focus on her breathing as her panting gasps for air echo in the dark steel tunnel.  _ In, out, _ she recites, trying to keep the pieces of her mind from splintering apart in the confined space.

 

She’s got goals to keep her focused (drop down into the room, unlock the door, let them inside without alerting any other security measures), and she tries not to let her mind stray from concentrating on those tasks, but Veronica’s voice filters in lightly as Betty crawls further into the space. 

 

“I saw where you were looking. Don’t think I’m not onto you.”

 

~~~

 

**Monday, December 24th.**

**10:16 a.m.**

 

Hiram Lodge’s trial is held on Christmas Eve, an unfortunate date that had only been made available by a last minute cancellation on the part of a few gang members (Ghoulies, if Betty recalls correctly) who’d skipped town.

 

Veronica doesn’t seem too upset, considering she’s on the witness stand to send her father to federal jail for years, confident as she sits with her reading glasses perched on her nose and a determined glint in her eyes.

 

Betty watches the procession from the audience seats in the courtroom, gaze always locked on her best friend’s, just in case Veronica needs the unwavering support when the questioning inevitably gets too infernal. Jughead’s by her side, fingers interlaced with hers, silent as the trial comes to an end. The judge announces her verdict, resounding in the quiet of the courtroom, and Jughead’s hand squeezes Betty’s tighter.

 

“You did good, Coop,” he whispers in her ear, his other hand running a comforting thumb over her denim-clad knee.

 

“I did,” she agrees, smiling lightly and leaning farther into him. “ _We_ sure did.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please leave any questions, comments, concerns, or reviews below. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
> 
> Happy holidays, everyone! <3


End file.
